appropos of nothing

Pick up any good book on writing and somewhere early in the description of the process the author will say you can’t write well if you are not reading good stuff. One article I read recently even quantified it: read a thousand pages for every one you write. I’m not sure I can live up…

I’m working my way through Luke so I am a little off from the lectionary, but this turned out to be the right story for this past week and, perhaps, for the days to come. _________________________ In my days as a high school English teacher, one of the books I loved to read with my…

Billy Collins has a poem about working on a poem and then talking about it before it was finished, only to watch it get up and walk away. I know how he feels. Then there are other times when it helps to get it out in the open like a promise that needs to be…

I realized again today that I keep an informal list in my head of movie scenes that help my understand the world. I’m sure I am not alone in that practice. Off the top of my head I can think of scenes from Miss Firecracker, Big Night, Moonstruck, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, The Elephant…